New Video - Re-Discovering Rail: The Smart, Green Alternative

On April 9, MAS convened an expert panel titled Re-Discovering Rail: The Smart, Green Alternative focusing on the issues of expanding the capacity of rail for travel and freight purposes in the United States, with particular emphasis on the needs of New York City for an improved local rail network for commuters that would be served by the new Penn & Moynihan stations.

Panelists Don Phillips, transportation analyst and former transportation reporter, The Washington Post & International Herald Tribune; and Walter Zullig, Jr., legal and transportation consultant and counsel emeritus, MetroNorth Railroad, discussed what is happening elsewhere and considered the local and regional obstacles to improving passenger service — and how those obstacles can be overcome.

Watch the video now.

Atlantic Yards or Atlantic Lots?

May 5, 2008
Today MAS released a set of renderings depicting the potential impact of interim parking lots and empty land on the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn. You can view the new renderings on a new slideshow at AtlanticLots.com and in the New York Post by clicking here.

Recently, Forest City Ratner (FCR) announced that key elements of the project will be delayed because of market conditions. Currently, FCR intends to begin constructing only the arena and one residential building on the Western end of the project. They plan to demolish the entire Eastern section of the site to create seven acres of "temporary" surface parking lots that could be with us for 15 or 20 years.

MAS is deeply concerned over the impact on the surrounding neighborhoods of vacant lots on the west of the project and giant parking lots on the east. In Sunday's (May 4) Daily News, FCR assured the public that the entire project will be completed by 2018, but other large-scale projects in New York – from Riverside South and Battery Park City to Queens West – have been delayed by a decade or longer.

Our goal in producing the renderings is to dramatize the need for New York State, which officially oversees the project, to move from the backseat role of previous administrations and take responsibility for guiding the largest development project in Brooklyn's history. Continue reading...

Place Matters Celebrates Ten Years

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of Place Matters, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has adopted the Place Matters theme for its annual Preservation Month this May. Join MAS and City Lore — sponsors of Place Matters — at a party in June to celebrate this anniversary, salute the people that make these places possible, and honor 10 places that matter selected by a panel of place enthusiasts from the more than 650 places nominated by the public. See the back cover of this newsletter for details, and visit www.placematters.net to add the places that matter to you to the census. Continue reading...

MAS Hosts DOT Launch of New Strategic Plan "Sustainable Streets"

Last night, New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan charted a smarter and greener future for City transportation policy with the launch of the agency's ambitious plan "Sustainable Streets" at the Municipal Art Society. The plan seeks to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the City's 6,300 miles of streets and install 200 new bike lanes, including 15 miles of protected bike lanes by 2009, to create new public plazas citywide, to increase the speed of buses, to expand ferry services and HOV lanes, and to establish data-supported benchmarks for measuring these goals. Continue reading...

Planning for All New Yorkers: An Atlas of Community-Based Plans

The Municipal Art Society Planning Center, with assistance from the Community-Based Planning Task Force, has developed an interactive, online tool that compiles community-based plans in New York City. Planning for All New Yorkers: An Atlas of Community-Based Plans in New York City contains 87 individual plans, created since 1989, the year that the City responded to pressure from communities to simplify and strengthen provisions in the City Charter for 197-a planning (197-a plans are officially-recognized, community-initiated local plans). Continue reading...

CitiYouth Maps the Five Boroughs

On Saturday April 5th, 2008, CITI Youth interns Tiffany Williams, Latoya Herndon, Eric Kenny, and Peejay Howard joined over 100 students from across North America at the 2008 PLANet Youth Conference. This inaugural conference, organized by the Young Planners Network, held at the Brooklyn Academy of Urban Planning in Bushwick, marked the start of "... an international movement to empower young people, educate adults, influence planning trends, and exchange best practices." The conference featured sessions led by young people from various cities, covering topics ranging from gentrification to rebuilding New Orleans. Continue reading...

61,000 New Yorkers Tune in to Watch MAS Documentary City of Water

City of Water, the documentary film from the Municipal Art Society and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance was aired on Channel Thirteen/WNET on Saturday, April 19 at 1.30 p.m.

Two years in the making, City of Water explores the aspirations of public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters and everyday New Yorkers for a diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York's history. The documentary features interviews with Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, US Representative Nydia Velazquez, MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter, author Phillip Lopate, Sandy Hook Pilots' Captain Andrew McGovern and others, and includes footage from Jamaica Bay, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and many other places on the waterfront.

Click on the "play" button above to watch a trailer of the movie. The film will be screened on Friday May 9, as part of the Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival. Click here for more details.

Good News for the Prospect Heights Historic District

On Wednesday, April 9, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a community forum on the district and shared their proposed boundaries for a 700-building district. The Commission may move as soon as this year to calendar the district, the first step in the designation process.

MAS applauds the Landmarks Preservation Commission for moving so rapidly to protect this very special neighborhood. Continue reading...

125th Street Rezoning Still Needs Work

On April 1st 2008, the Municipal Art Society testified at the Land-use and Franchise subcommittee hearing regarding the 125th Street rezoning plan. City Planning has been working for almost four years on this plan. It first emerged as the “River to River Study,” a promise to create a vibrant Harlem Main Street, buttressed on either side by access to two of New York’s Waterfronts. The current plan does not, however, extend from “River to River” but covers the area from Second Avenue to Broadway and from 124th Street to 126th Street with 125th Street as the spine.

The rezoning initiative held the promise to revitalize 125th Street as Harlem’s vibrant mixed-use corridor, maintaining a specific emphasis on the arts and entertainment industry to support Harlem’s unique position as a local, national, and international destination. The proposed plan under review, unfortunately, still falls short of its commendable vision. Continue reading...

MAS Urges State to Keep Moynihan Station on Track

Appearing on WNYC's Morning Edition this past Friday, MAS President Kent Barwick expressed his disappointment at the recent decision by the owners of Madison Square Garden not to move the arena to the western end of the Farley Post Office building as currently proposed in the Moynihan Station project plan. This move has the potential to derail the most important project in the city, and Mr. Barwick suggested that the state ought to investigate using all of its powers to ensure the project stays on track.

Click here to listen to the interview, here to read the New York Times coverage of the news, and here to learn more about our Moynihan Station advocacy.

St. Vincent's Demolition Application Could Set Dangerous Precedent

MAS recently wrote to Chairman Tierney of the Landmarks Preservation Commission to express our concern about the application to demolish historic buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District for the redevelopment of St. Vincent’s Hospital. As far as we know, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in its 43 years of watching over our city’s heritage, has not permitted the demolition of a building that contributes to the historic district under a Certificate of Appropriateness and we see no reason for the Commission to do so now.

To watch a slideshow of the threatened buildings, click here. Please note that the building descriptions contained in the captions to the slideshow were taken from the designation report. For more detailed information about these buildings from the report, click here. And, for some more images of the threatened buildings, click here.

Join us at the LPC hearing tomorrow!

Saarinen Terminal to Reopen, But Future of "Trumpet" in Doubt

The Port Authority recently announced it plans to reopen the historic TWA, or Saarinen, Terminal at Kennedy Airport this fall allowing passengers to pass through the landmark structure on their way to the new JetBlue Airlines terminal that wraps around it. MAS is delighted that the original building will continue to be used, but remains concerned that the trumpet-shaped departure lounge that was cut apart from the rest of the structure last year will not be rehabilitated. Read more.

MAS Aids in Legal Victory Against Speculative Dorm Developer

On March 25, the New York State Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that an East Village developer could not build a 19 story dormitory without a commitment from an educational institution. The decision dealt a major blow to unscrupulous developers and signaled a major step forward in the protection of a New York City-designated landmark school building. MAS filed an amicus brief in support of the Department of Building’s requirement that a developer show a connection with an educational institution sufficient to persuade it that the building, when built, really would be a dormitory. Continue reading...

The Livable Neighborhood Program Comes to Flatbush

On Saturday, March 29, the MAS Planning Center will be bring the Livable Neighborhoods Program to Flatbush — conducting a day of workshops and trainings. The Livable Neighborhoods Program was created to provide communities with the knowledge, tools, and training needed to transform local vision into effective plans. The program which first launched at Hunter College in 2007, provides participants with in person training, a take home comprehensive community planning toolkit and access to a web-based network for ongoing to discussion. The program is free and it will be taking place in the Student Center. If you are interested in attending please complete and return the registration form. If you have any questions, please contact Sideya Sherman at ssherman@mas.org or 212-935-3960 x 259.

For full details of this event, visit the Livable Neighborhoods Program web page.

Creating the City We All Want: A Roadmap

The MAS Planning Center is holding a series of forums this spring on the future of community-based planning in New York City. The opening program is titled Elected Officials Respond to Communities That Plan for Themselves, and will be held on Monday, March 24. Click here for more details.

OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsracks Movie

Please click on the play icon above to watch OUTRAGE! the nasty newsracks movie.

Cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco have all passed and are enforcing newsrack regulations that are both effective and workable. New York City is like the wild west when it comes to curtailing newsrack blight. Contact the Honorable John Liu, Chair of the Transportation Committee at the New York City Council, the Honorable Jessica Lappin, New York City Council Member, or the Honorable Janette Sadik-Kahn, New York City Transportation Commissioner, and let them know what you think.

MAS Planning Center Launches New Community-Based Planning Blog

The Community-Based Planning Task Force is leading the effort to create a more meaningful role for communities in New York City’s planning and decision-making processes and recently launched a new blog as a locus for community-planners to learn about and discuss the latest in community planning news.

To learn more about the campaign, visit the blog at www.communitybasedplanning.wordpress.com.

Major Step Forward on East Side Waterfront Park

MAS is pleased to announce that New York City Council Land Use Committee voted this morning to approve a proposed plan for the former Con Ed Site on the East River between 38th and 41st streets on the East River. This plan makes the East Side Waterfront Park possible, as the developer of the site, East River Realty Company, has agreed to provide an easement so that the FDR highway can be realigned when it is rebuilt in the next few years that will allow a deck — with a park on top — to be built over the highway, finally connecting the East Side to the waterfront. Additionally, the developer has agreed to provide $10 million towards the construction of this deck and has also guaranteed public access to the park along the routes of 39th and 40th streets.

We congratulate all those involved — particularly local Council Member Dan Garodnick and Speaker Christine Quinn and the developer East River Realty Company — for their hard work in reaching this agreement. We'd also like to thank Manhattan Community Board Six for their many years of tireless work on the project. If you'd like to contact Council Member Garodnick click here or you can e-mail Speaker Quinn here. Continue reading...

Moynihan Station: What Needs to Happen Next

Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., at the Municipal Art Society
The construction of Moynihan Station is the single most critical civic project planned for New York City this decade. Penn Station, this country’s busiest transportation center, is overcapacity and inefficient. A modern, state-of-the-art train station would revitalize the surrounding district and be the most effective catalyst for development on the Far West Side of Manhattan. What will it take to fully realize Senator Moynihan’s vision?

Panelists include: Kent Barwick, president, Municipal Art Society; Richard Ravitch, principal, Ravitch Rice & Company LLC; Richard L. Brodsky, assemblyman, New York State Assembly; Anna Hayes Levin, chair, Community Board 4; and Daniel A. Biederman, president, 34th Street Partnership. Moderator: Charles Bagli, reporter, The New York Times.

$15, $12 MAS members. Reservations and prepayment required. Purchase tickets online or call 212 935 2075